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Overview

ProBase can automatically calculate the most efficient order to visit your stops, saving you time and fuel. There are two ways optimization happens:
  • Optimize drive — tap a button in the Reorder stops panel to instantly reorder one crew’s stops for the day. See Reordering stops.
  • Background auto-optimization — ProBase silently optimizes routes in the background whenever new appointments are created. Enable this once in your settings and it runs automatically.
  • Crew suggestions — when you assign a crew to a job, ProBase uses the same optimizer to work out how much extra driving each crew would take on, shows the figure next to every crew, and marks the cheapest one Recommended. See The Recommended crew, and what each crew costs you in driving.
  • Start time suggestions — when you edit a visit’s time, the same optimizer works out when the crew would arrive if they drove their whole day in the most efficient order, and offers that as a one-tap Recommended start time. See The recommended start time.

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Optimize drive (on-demand)

The Optimize drive button lives inside the Reorder stops panel, which you open from the Day view of the Schedule. If you’re viewing several crews at once, ProBase asks you to pick a crew before the panel opens — tap a crew’s name in the Pick a crew list and the panel opens for them right away, since a route is optimized for one crew’s day at a time. Reorder modal with Optimize drive button Tapping Optimize drive sends your crew’s stops to the route optimizer, which calculates the most fuel-efficient visiting order and shows you a summary of total drive time and time saved. The total drive time is time behind the wheel only — the whole loop from the crew’s start location, between every stop, and back to their end location if you’ve set one. Time spent doing the work isn’t counted in it. Optimized view with drive time summary You can then tap Apply changes to lock in the new order, or Cancel to go back to the original sequence. Before applying optimization After applying optimization For full step-by-step instructions, see Optimize your drive automatically.
Optimize drive requires the crew to have at least one saved address — a starting address, an ending address, or both — plus at least 2 stops with valid addresses. See Adding crews.
If the crew has no starting and no ending address saved, there’s nowhere for the day to begin or end, so ProBase can’t plan the drive. Tapping Optimize drive shows the warning “Could not optimize route. Please try again.” and leaves your stop order untouched. Add a starting address to the crew and tap the button again.

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Background auto-optimization

When enabled, ProBase automatically optimizes a crew’s route in the background every time a new appointment is scheduled. You don’t need to do anything — the route updates silently so your crew always has an efficient schedule.

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Enable auto-optimization

  1. Click Settings in the sidebar under Business
  2. Scroll to the Scheduling section
  3. Toggle Auto-optimize routes to ON
Auto-optimize routes off Auto-optimize routes on

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When auto-optimization runs

With auto-optimization enabled, routes are automatically optimized when:
  • A new appointment is created and assigned to a crew
  • An unassigned appointment is scheduled
The optimization runs in the background and updates appointment times without any action on your part.
Auto-optimization only runs if the crew has a configured start location and the appointment has a geocoded address. If either is missing, the appointment is added to the schedule without reordering.

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Manual vs automatic optimization

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How optimization works

The optimizer:
  1. Starts at the crew’s configured start location (depot) — or, for a crew that only has an ending address, at whichever job makes the best first stop
  2. Calculates the most efficient order to visit all stops
  3. Returns to the crew’s end location at the end of the day — or, if the crew has no ending address, finishes at the last job
  4. Uses real road networks for accurate drive times
After optimization (or after saving a reordered route), appointment times are recalculated using the crew’s Start Time as the anchor. The first stop gets the start time, and each subsequent stop is scheduled based on travel time plus the previous stop’s duration. See Setting a crew start time for details on configuring the crew’s start time.

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Requirements

Route optimization requires:
  • The crew must have at least one saved address — a starting address, an ending address, or both
  • Property addresses must be geocoded (valid addresses entered in ProBase)
  • At least 2 stops must exist for the crew on that date (appointments and/or manually added route stops)
An ending address is not required. A crew that starts from the shop but has nowhere fixed to return to optimizes just like any other — the route simply ends at the last job of the day. What ProBase can’t do is plan a day with neither address saved. In that case there’s no fixed point to build the drive around, so Optimize drive returns the “Could not optimize route. Please try again.” warning, background auto-optimization skips the crew, and crew and start-time suggestions come up empty. A starting address on the crew fixes all of them at once.
Background auto-optimization is stricter: it only runs for crews with a starting address. An ending address alone is enough for Optimize drive, but not for the background pass.
If you haven’t set up crew locations yet, see Adding crews.

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Next steps